CHERUB: The New Recruits
by fgc97
Summary: DAILY UPDATES FOR THE FIRST WEEK ONLY: MONDAY 15TH, TUESDAY 16TH, WEDNESDAY 17TH, THURSDAY 18TH AND FRIDAY 19TH. Andrew Richardson is a normal kid in a normal school living a normal life. Or is he? Find out about his life at CHERUB.
1. Sleepover

_Chapter One: Sleepover_

'Andrew Richardson!'

Andrew Richardson _had_ been daydreaming before Mr Roberts shouted at him. It had been a wonderful daydream, but he instantly forgot what it was about. Mr Roberts shouting voice was enough to make anyone wake up from a beautiful daydream or a horrible nightmare alike. Unfortunately, Mr Roberts made Andrew wake up out of a beautiful daydream and into a horrible nightmare.

'Have you finished the set maths questions?' Mr Roberts asked.

'Yes,' said Andrew. 'I have.'

'Show me,' said Mr Roberts, believing Andrew was lying.

Andrew stood up and took his mathematics textbook and workbook to the teacher's desk at the front of the room. In it were the completed maths questions. Mr Roberts checked them over, and, disbelievingly, found that Andrew had received 100%.

'Andrew, I'm going to give you three bonus questions,' said Mr Roberts. While he was writing them, Andrew realised they were going to be extremely difficult. He took the book away and worked at them.

Ten minutes later, he was done. There was another ten minutes until the bell was set to go. He took the questions up to the teacher, and they were all correct as well. Now he was really bored. Sitting in his seat with no difficult and challenging work, Andrew now had nothing to do but fiddle around with pens and fingers.

'Andrew,' called Mr Roberts, 'Please stop being an annoying troublemaker.'

'But I'm not being a troublemaker, Mr Roberts,' Andrew challenged. 'I have nothing else to do.'

'That isn't an excuse, Mr Richardson. Please confine yourself to your own mind and stop distracting your fellow pupils. There is no need to be a troublemaker when you are bored, especially when other students are working,' said Mr Roberts.

When the bell went, he couldn't wait to go and see his friend.

'Myles!' called out Andrew. Myles was standing fifty metres away, and came running up to him.

'Hey, Andrew!' Myles puffed. 'I asked my parents, and – do you want to come for a sleepover on Friday night?'

'Sure. I'll have to ask my parents first, though.'

'That's fine. Anyway, how's things?'

'Not good.'

'Why not?' Myles asked his friend, concernedly.

'Mr Roberts accused me of being a troublemaker again.' There was a pause, an awkward silence that had Myles put his hands in his pocket. 'I'm just so sick of it – I'm nine years old, not a fifteen-year old teenager like my neighbours son. I just seem to finish all of my work quicker than anyone else. It's so easy and I just get bored, but they don't seem to care.'

'Maybe we need to ask if you can get harder levels of work,' suggested Myles.

'I dunno,' said Andrew. 'I really just don't know. He doesn't listen to me, and he doesn't understand that I'm not being interested or challenged by his work like I need to be.'

'I get the same things too, sometimes. Come on – cheer up. If your parents let you, you'll be coming over to my house on Friday. That should get you away from their bickering for a while, shouldn't it?'

'I guess. But that's only a small highlight to my week, and it has to come at the very end of it.'

'Murphy's Law,' said Myles. 'That's just how these things work, and you have to live with it.'

'What's Murphy's Law?' asked Andrew.

'_Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong_. It's a saying my parent's use all the time. It's funny. Weird.'

'Okay.'

'Anyway, what've you got next?'

'Erm … English. But I've already finished the work in that. It's gonna be a boring day.'

O

After watching some television (he had no homework to do), Andrew sat down to dinner with his parents. Just being in the room, Andrew could feel the tension. He saw his father, and realised it was something about his dad that was causing the tension. Andrew decided to pretend not to notice.

'So, Andrew,' said his mother. 'How was your day at school?'

'Good,' said Andrew. 'Oh,' he said, acting as if he had only just remembered, 'Myles wants to know if I can go over to his house for a sleepover tomorrow night.'

'Erm,' his mother said. 'It's up to your father.'

Andrew looked at his father, but before he could speak, his father spoke. 'Don't ask me, ask your mother.'

'Not this again!' said Andrew.

'You can go, Silly,' said his mother.

Even after this, Andrew could sense his father was hiding something, and was still rather tense.


	2. Death

_Chapter Two: Death_

Andrew woke with a start when he heard someone knocking on the front door of Myles' house. He checked the digital alarm clock on Myles' bedside table: 05:47am it read. Even though the sun wasn't meant to be up, Andrew thought he could see a faint orange glow through the window. Thinking back on it, Andrew thought it was more of a glare than a glow. The shining was so hard, it actually hurt his eyes to stare right into it, as if staring into the sun. Myles had woken up at the sound of the knocking on the door as well.

Myles' mother moaned and awoke from her bed, moving towards the front door. The light in the hallway provided a few shadows to be seen in the hallway through the small gap in the bedroom door. The front entrance to the house opened.

'I'm sorry to have disturbed you, ma'am,' came an unfamiliar, female voice. 'Unfortunately, I have some bad news for someone currently staying within the confines of your house.'

'Andrew?' said Myles' mother sleepily to the unfamiliar female voice. 'Andrew Richardson?'

'Yes, ma'am. May I come in and wait for him to wake up?' said the unfamiliar female voice rather formally.

'Yes, yes.'

Judging from how formal the unfamiliar female voice was speaking, Andrew and Myles figured it must've been a policewoman. Suddenly, the shadow figures of the two women came down the hallway and past Myles bedroom, and the two nine-year-olds quickly lay flat in their beds from their previous sitting position. But they didn't pretend to be asleep. If Myles' mother came in and found them awake, then they'd find out quicker what was going on.

'Would you like a coffee, Miss?' asked Myles' mother.

'Oh, no thank you, ma'am,' came the voice of the policewoman.

'Well, I'm just going to check on Andrew and my son.'

'Okay.'

Andrew and Myles didn't have to speak to each other to simultaneously mentally decide to sit up in their beds and wait for Myles' mother to enter the room. When the door opened, she got a bit of a surprise.

'Well, gathering that the pair of you were silently eavesdropping on my conversation with the policewoman out there, you know what to do, don't you?' said Myles' mother in a criticising tone. 'The policewoman wishes to speak to you, Andrew.'

Myles' mother led Andrew and her son in to the living room. Everyone was sitting in different chairs.

'Which one of you is Andrew?' the policewoman asked politely. Andrew slowly raised his arm, not daring to speak for fear of what was to happen. 'No, Andrew – you're not in trouble,' said the policewoman suddenly, reading Andrew's mind. 'I have some unfortunate news for you.'

There was an awkward silence in which nobody spoke, and then the policewoman continued.

'Your father was found to be involved in a terrorist organisation by the police around four months ago. We were unable to gather enough evidence to send him to prison. Unfortunately, your father got on the bad side of one of the leading head terrorists in the group, and desperately tried to escape on Wednesday night. And he did – at least, he thought he did. Three hours ago, these terrorists are believed to have bombed your parent's house.'

It was at this moment that Andrew became shocked, and the look came on his face. His worst fears were confirmed.

'Both your mother and your father are dead.'

O

The police station was cold and blue – police blue. Before this, Andrew had never been in a police station. But it wasn't such a great moment for his life. In his mind, Andrew kept repeating what the policewoman had told him.

_'Three hours ago, these terrorists are believed to have bombed your parent's house … Both your mother and your father are dead.'_

Andrew couldn't hide it from himself – he was scared. What was going to happen to him? Where was he going to end up? He was all alone in this area of the station. Myles and his mother had to go back home, but they promised to come back. Even after all this, Myles still wasn't convinced of anything that was going on. He may not have realised it, but he was beginning to have a mental breakdown.

The policewoman that had spoken to Andrew before at Myles' house opened the door and came in. She seemed very tense to Andrew. With this, Andrew realised why his father had been so tense the previous night.

'How are you, Andrew?' asked the policewoman. She may have spoken politely, but Andrew refused to speak to her. But he didn't think he was being rude, he was just having trouble adjusting to what had happened.

'Andrew?' she asked again.

'Stop it,' mumbled Andrew in such a low voice that the policewoman could barely hear him.

'Pardon? I didn't quite catch that.'

'I SAID STOP IT!' shouted Andrew. The policewoman was so shocked she almost fell over backwards. 'YOU'LL NEVER UNDERSTAND HOW THIS FEELS! ALL YOU PIGS EVER DO IS COMPLAIN ABOUT YOUR JOB AND HOW YOU DON'T GET ENOUGH MONEY! SO JUST STOP IT AND LEAVE ME ALONE!' This time, the policewoman actually did fall over backwards. She was so shocked at Andrew relieving himself of all his stress that she began to feel a rush of anger. However, she quickly calmed herself down.

'YOU COULD HAVE STOPPED THIS!' Andrew continued shouting. 'IF YOU'D GOT OFF YOUR FAT BACKSIDES AND ACTUALLY DID YOUR JOB, THESE STUPID TERRORISTS WOULDN'T BE ROAMING AROUND SCOTT FREE, WOULD THEY?'

'I'll go then,' she said quietly.

'YOU DO THAT!' Andrew shouted back.

As the policewoman left, a policeman entered, completely voluntarily. Andrew was so angry that he didn't even notice.

The policeman didn't say a word; he just put a needle into Andrew's arm and watched the little boy quickly fall asleep.


	3. Newcomer

**Someone asked me how many chapters there are going to be, and what all of their titles are. So, I have decided to be nice and tell them all to you at the bottom of this chapter.**

**Enjoy, read, review!**

_Chapter Three: Newcomer_

Even once Andrew Richardson woke up, he still felt groggy from the drug that had been forcibly injected into him. Even though his body was awake, his brain was still fast asleep, and he was unable to leave the bed he was laying in.

Thinking about this suddenly made Andrew awaken. _He was in a different bed_. So, the next thing to figure out was: where was he? He was unable to answer that question for himself. The last thing he remembered was asking one of the police officers to go away. He didn't remember being rude and shouting his head off at everyone. Standing up, Andrew was also shocked to find himself naked. Now he was starting to feel really creeped out.

There were clothes on a table on the opposite side of the room – an orange shirt, army cargo camouflage pants, even underwear, socks and a singlet. The orange shirt had a globe of the world and the word CHERUB stamped on its centre in capital letters. Everything was in his size, something that was yet again rather shocking to the little, nine-year-old boy. He put the fresh clothes on and noticed that he was the first to wear them. Even the boots had a new-shoe smell to them.

Once he was dressed, Andrew decided to try and find out where he was. Outside was a corridor with nine other doors exactly the same as his. A teenage girl came out of one of the rooms with three thick textbooks in her arms. She was obviously in a rush.

'Excuse me,' started Andrew. Before he could continue, the teenage girl interrupted him.

She simply stated, almost cryptically, 'Can't talk to Orange.'

Andrew had a look of confusion and befuddlement on his face. '_Can't talk to what?_' he asked. But the teenage girl didn't answer him, she simply ran off.

Another person, a boy who looked to be only a year or so older than Andrew himself came up from the stairs that the girl just went down. Andrew decided to try and talk to this person. 'Excuse me,' he asked. The boy stopped. 'Where am I, and where do I go?'

'I – I – I'm not meant to talk to orange, but follow me, and don't talk to me,' said the boy, as if he was scared. He walked towards the elevator, and beckoned for Andrew to follow him.

At the bottom of the building was a huge reception. Massive glass doors showed a clearly visible massive fountain. On it was the same globe that was the massive logo for his shirt. CHERUB. He was really beginning to wonder what this was.

'Excuse me?' Andrew asked tentatively, imagining the old lady in reception was going to tell him that she couldn't talk to orange. Before Andrew could continue, though –

'Good morning! You must be Andrew – is that right? Andrew Richardson?' The receptionist seemed very polite to Andrew, and he was finally happy that _someone_ could talk to him.

'Yes. Where am I, and what am I doing here?'

'You should probably ask those questions to the Chairwoman. Doubtless, though, she'll probably answer them before you can ask them.'

'Will she?' Andrew asked.

'Yes. We generally have a £10 bet on it. Seeing as you are the tenth hopeful recruit, we've upped it to £1,000 to make it interesting.' The receptionist paused and thought for a moment. 'I'm going to go and get the Chairwoman, but before I do, can I ask something of you?'

'Sure,' said Andrew, willing to do anything for the nice lady who decided to talk to him.

'When she comes out of the room, ask her where you are and why you're here, please?'

'Sure.'

The receptionist stood up and went to a large door, knocking three times. 'Mrs Asker, Andrew Richardson is here to talk to you.'

The door opened, and a forty-year-old mum came out of the room. She didn't look the type to be the Chairwoman of anything. 'Thank you, Rosetta. Come along, Andrew.'

Andrew was set to go before remembering what Rosetta had asked of him. 'Where am I and what am I doing here?'

'Looks like £1,000 to you there, Rosetta. And to think I only got £90 off of you,' said the Chairwoman. 'Come along in, Andrew, and I'll answer your questions.'

The office was of amazing size. 'First things first – where are you? CHERUB Campus!'

This was apparently meant to mean something, but Andrew couldn't think of anything that clicked in his brain. 'CHERUB Campus?'

'Yes. CHERUB Campus is the home of all CHERUBs. You're going to find out more of what I'm talking about when I properly explain it to you, but you asked the questions first, so you get to be confused first.'

'Okayyy…'

'And the second question – what are you doing here?'

'Okay, okay, okay,' interrupted Andrew. 'Can you please just give me the lecture you obviously want to give me.'

'Sure,' said the Chairwoman. 'My name is Zara Asker, and I am the Chairwoman of CHERUB. CHERUB is a secret organisation that has an aim to put a stop to terrorists and baddies. We are a branch of British Intelligence. CHERUB agents are spies.' Andrew was so shocked he fell off of his seat. 'Wow, there. Let me help you up. I didn't realise it would be that shocking to you. This didn't happen with any of the other agents I've had come here.'

'Why do you use children to catch criminals?' Andrew asked, questioningly.

'Our previous Chairperson created a scene. If a man came up to the door of an elderly woman in the middle of the night and asked to come in, the woman wouldn't let him in, would she? If he said he was injured, she may ring an ambulance for him, but she still won't let him in.'

'Is this going anywhere?' asked Andrew, confused.

'Yes, it is,' Zara assured the boy. 'Now, if you were sitting on the veranda crying, the lady would ask what was wrong. Imagine you say, "My daddy's car crashed down the road. He's hurt." The old lady opens the door immediately, lets you in. But imagine an adult is standing near the hedges around the corner of the house. He bags the lady, and runs off with the cash under the mattress. CHERUB agents do this, but they do it the other way around. During a mission, a CHERUB agent will infiltrate a criminal gang or terrorist group. Criminals will suspect adults, imagining them as undercover cops. Therefore, a kid can do more than an adult can do – _if they're trained_.'

'What was the emphasis on the "_if they're trained_" for?'

'Lately, some untrained agents or red-shirts have been skiving off to join trained agents on missions. Recently, an eight-year-old boy who got cocky with his mates went off and was stabbed in the arm. He spent a month in hospital before we found out. We'd been sending search parties around the local area for him. It came as such a terrible shock that a respected red-shirt carer resigned because of the pressure of what she though was her fault, when it was actually the red-shirt.'

'_Red-shirt_?' asked Andrew, seemingly more confused than when Zara began the conversation on untrained agents.

'You will have noticed that you are wearing an orange shirt.'

'Yes.'

'And when you came along up here –'

'People kept on saying _can't talk to orange_.'

'Correct. Now, the fluorescent orange is a warning to the other cherubs. You're a visitor. No CHERUB agent may talk to a visitor with prior given permission from the Chairperson. A red-shirt is a person, generally under the age of ten, who is unable to become an agent. To become an agent, you must pass through basic training, which is where you wear the blue shirt. You can only join basic training once you are ten years old, and must pass through all 100 days without contact with the outside world. It is extremely difficult, but you then receive the grey shirt, meaning you are now eligible to go on missions. After a great, successful mission, the Chairperson can then promote you to the navy shirt. After several good and successful missions, the Chairperson can then promote you to the ultimate shirt: black. When a cherub retires, they receive the white shirt. The white shirt is also worn by staff.'

'Okay,' said Andrew, pretending to understand.

'How about I take you on a tour of CHERUB Campus then?'

'That sounds like fun.'

O

'There have been many amazing agents throughout the history of CHERUB,' said Zara. 'One of our most recent people to have aged out was James Adams. He'd gone on many missions in his life – he even completely stuffed one up – but he was a common name around CHERUB for all of the right reasons.'

'Sounds cool,' said Andrew.

'Now, I hear you are nine years and eight months old, correct?'

'Correct?'

'Then you will be living over here!' Zara pointed towards a large building painted in red. 'This is where the red-shirts live. Even at the age you are and younger, many have already learnt a language or two fluently. Do you know many languages?'

'I know basic Indonesian. And I know a little bit of French, Japanese, Italian and Spanish. But not much of them.'

'At CHERUB, you can learn any language you like.'

'Cool!' said Andrew, finally enthusiastic and interested. He had an interest in languages.

'Want to live here?' asked Zara. 'Do you want to become a spy for British Intelligence?'

'Yes,' said Andrew, seriously. 'Yes, I do.'

O

'Now,' said Meryl Spencer, one of the handlers, 'You will need to change your name for verification. We can't have Andrew Richardson running around the streets of London anymore.'

'Erm,' said Andrew, thinking of the night before.

_'Hello, Andre,' called out one of the carers._

_ 'My name's Andrew, not Andre. Why do you keep getting that mixed up?'_

_ 'It's just a nice-sounding name, isn't it? Andre…'_

'I'd like to change my name to Andre Richardson,' Andrew said.

'Could you change your last name as well please? We don't always ask someone to do this, but Andre is very close to Andrew.'

'How does Andre Cherub sound?'

'Just one second,' said Meryl, running out of the room. She came back with Zara, the Chairwoman. 'He'd like to change his name to Andre Cherub,' she said to Zara, whispering. 'Will that cause problems with security?'

'Nope,' said Zara back, equally as quiet. 'Welcome to CHERUB Campus, Andre Cherub!'

**Chapter Time!**

_**Chapter One: Sleepover**_

_**Chapter Two: Death**_

_**Chapter Three: Newcomer**_

_**Chapter Four: Friendship**_

_**Chapter Five: Fearful**_

_**Chapter Six: Basics**_

_**Chapter Seven: Checkpoint**_

_**Chapter Eight: Settling**_

_**Chapter Nine: Choosing**_

_**Chapter Ten: Briefing**_

_**Chapter Eleven: Invitation**_

_**Chapter Twelve: Plans**_

_**Chapter Thirteen: Terrorist**_

_**Chapter Fourteen: Morning**_

_**Chapter Fifteen: Afternoon**_

_**Chapter Sixteen: Evening**_

_**Chapter Seventeen: Recovery**_

**As a warning - there will be a sequel to this, and another sequel. I'll tell you all how many books there will be if this story hits 50 reviews.**


	4. Friendship

**_Chapter Four: Friendship_**

The next day, Andre was set into a room, and given a red CHERUB shirt. He didn't own anything of his own apart from that. He did have his wallet, which held a little pocket money, an identification photograph of himself and a picture of him with his mother and father, but there wasn't much else. One part of the room was only slightly personalised – but not much. It appeared that Andre had a roommate.

'_Leave me alone!_' came the shout of a boy's voice out in the corridor. The door suddenly opened, a flash of a boy came in, and the door closed, the deadlock bolted. '_Please don't hurt me!_' the boy squeaked at Andre. Obviously this boy was his roommate, but didn't know who he was.

'I'm not here to hurt you,' said Andre, calmly and in a professional manner. 'I'm Andrew Richardson – nope, sorry. Andre Cherub. I'm the newest recruit.'

'Oh,' said the boy. 'I'm the second-newest now. I've been here for a fortnight. Henri Rheon,' he held out to shake hands. Andre accepted. 'So, how did you get here?' Henri asked, eager to make conversation and friends.

'I never found out much about my family until they died,' Andre said. 'Apparently, my father was involved in a terrorist organisation. When he tried to escape, they bombed our house. I was at a sleepover at my friend's house. And to imagine all of that happened just two days ago.'

Henri just stood, mouth gaping.

'And how did you get here?' Andre asked the gape-mouthed boy.

'My family were killed – by French terrorists. One of the largest groups around, apparently. We were walking along a simple footbridge on a holiday in Paris. When the first explosion went, my father threw me onto grass. But he and my mum weren't so lucky…'

Henri stopped, tears filling his eyes as he looked ready to sob. 'How did they die?' Andre asked, quietly.

Henri went into a sudden, seemingly unintelligible rant. '_L'explosion a completement detruit la passerelle. Mon pere est tombe sur un bateau venant en sens inverse, deja morte avec des eclats d'obus le blessant mortellement. Le corps de ma mere a ete brulee un noir charbon des flammes et tomba juste a cote de moi._'

'Is that … French?' asked Andre. 'What does it mean?'

'The blast completely destroyed the footbridge. My father fell onto an oncoming boat, already dead with shrapnel fatally wounding him. My mother's body was scorched a charcoal black from the flames and fell right beside me.'

'Okay.' Andre realised he had another question for Henri. 'Why did you just switch to French?'

'It happens sometimes when I talk about something sad. I was born in France and learnt both French and English.'

'Okay.'

'Have you chosen your subjects?' Henri questioned.

'Nope. Maybe you can help me choose.'

'Well, I'm taking _Avance Francais_ and _Espanol Principiantes_ for my languages. Advanced French and Beginners Spanish. Then I'm taking Level 12 Mathematics.'

'Level 12?'

'At CHERUB, most subjects have levels. The levels are for the normal age their aimed at. You'll be started at Level 9 and your teacher will push you up to whichever level you need.'

'Okay – that makes sense.'

'Then I have Level 10 English, but I'm about to be put into Level 11. Then I have Espionage 2. Espionage isn't age-based – it just goes with levels.'

'Cool.'

There was a knock at the door, and it opened. A carer came in.

'Andre Cherub?'

'That's me,' Andre called.

'You and a friend are needed at Zara's office. Just choose a friend and go.'

'I'll take Henri.'

O

'So, Andre – some of your subjects have already been chosen for you from your schoolwork,' said the Chairwoman to Andre and Henri. 'Starting Monday of next week, you'll be taking Level 13 English and Level 14 Mathematics. Then you'll be taking Espionage 1, Athletics 1 and Training 1. You need to choose any other subjects.'

'Can I take _Espanol Principiantes_ and _Nybegynnere Norske_ please?' asked Andre.

'Beginners Spanish and Beginners Norwegian – sure. Before you go into Basic Training though, be reminded, you need to have complete Espionage 2, Athletics 3 and Training 3, okay?'

'Yes.'

'Andre – with your name, we suggest you learn beginners French as well, is that fine?'

'Yep.'

'Henri – you're going to be placed in Level 13 English and Level 13 Mathematics. Also, you've been upgraded to Espionage 3 and Athletics 2.'

'Thank you, Mrs Asker.'

'Off you go.'

O

Somebody was waiting in their room before they got there.

'Hello, Rheon. I see you've brought me a little friend,' said the boy in a deep voice. He was easily fourteen, but a bit of a thug.

'Leave Andre alone!' shouted Henri quickly.

'Andre? Nice name. I'm Secton – Secton Guide.' Andre was silent the entire time Secton spoke. 'Not a talker, eh?'

'I told you to leave him alone!' Henri shouted again.

'What're you going to do? You're only in Training 2 – you don't have a chance against me.'

'What level are you, then?' Andre asked.

'That's none of your business!' Secton shouted.

The same carer who had told Andre and Henri to see the Chairwoman came barging through the door, not even bothering to knock.

'What on earth is going on in here?!' the carer shouted. She saw Secton in the room, and could figure it for herself. 'Secton, out! You'll be seeing the Chairwoman soon – I'm sick of you causing trouble for new recruits. OUT!'

The carer saw Andre and Henri smiling at each other, and correctly foresaw an amazing friendship blooming between them.


End file.
